Fortunately, I've a nice diner near my house. For those of you interested in these Buffalo wooden speakers, however, you should know that they work without batteries. That's convenient, although you shouldn't expect boombox thump. [Buffalo via Akihabar]

According to Ron van der Ende:

I collect old doors and stuff. Old painted wood that I find in the street. I take it apart and skin it to obtain a 3mm thick veneer with the old paint layers still intact. I construct bas-reliefs that I cover with these veneers much like a constructed mosaic. I do not paint them!

I want some of these so badly. [Ron van der Ende via Motherboard via Obsolete]

Just like in cars, the next evolution is to eliminate the crank and have an automatic version. Preferably one that you can push down on once and it'll crank all the way, but that can also turn slowly when you hold it down, for a more dramatic rotation. [Freewebs]

The kidney-shaped, iPhone-like handset is constructed from a Cypress wood base that's been compression molded for extended durability. Despite this manufacturing process, each phone retains a unique grain pattern, color palate and woody aroma. And, just so you don't have to feel bad about it, the wood is considered "surplus" from "forest-thinning operations."

Docomo will be showing off prototypes in Japan later this week. And while we'll probably never see the phones reach the US, we can't get over the fact that wood seems a lot more classy than plastic. [Docomo via Electronista via TFTS]

JFK had it right, "Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride." [Core77]

Corrected: The father and son team of Ken and Stuart Wheeler designed this gorgeous bike, not Sean Denham.

Italian scientists have developed a new "wood-derived bone substitute" that promises to be better than ceramic or metal implants. They start with a block of wood like red oak, burn it until the block is essentially charcoal and then coat the substance with calcium.

The "bone" takes about a week to produce at a cost of around $850. And while it's not quite as cool as titanium, the spongier structure handles natural impacts better, and other bones prefer the calcium carbon mix to space shuttle alloys.

So much for my awesome robot legs. [Discovery]

"Personally, I am fascinated by how the world is changing into a digital world. To me it seems that; the digital world is personal but not private at all. For example, when I Google to find information about a friend, I will most likely find information about his life, his pets, his company and maybe a review on a digital camera that he has recently written. Notice that the digital verb 'Googling' has recently got the status of a real verb in the Netherlands. Just another example how the two worlds become one." Dear diary 1.0 is thus both the literal and the figurative manifestation of the worlds colliding. A physical reminder that increasingly, the real and the digital are becoming indistinguishable.

It's deep, but at least I see Romberg's point—not like this ridiculous Spaceballs lamp. [Marlies Romberg via Moco Loco]

Nikolay Polissky is an artist who trades primarily in giant, incomprehensibly weird wooden sculptures. Apparently (as in, obviously) his intention in building this "Large Hadron Collider" wasn't to create something with much aesthetic similarity to the LHC, but something that captures its essence. One shared motif: Tubes!Otherwise, see if you can pick out this "essence":

Me neither. [English Russia, Technogreatideas]

55-year-old Peijia Wu, from Shandong province, allegedly took three months to build his DIY wooden bike. It features no metal parts whatsoever – joints are fixed with small wooden bungs and a rod-crank system has replaced where the chain would normally be.

Ingenious! It's like a stair master and a bike rolled into one and it's probably less likely to fall apart than other wooden bike models. [Chine Informations via Shanghaiist]

How much, Lasseter? How much!? [Toys R Evil]

Of course, if I tried this, mine would end up looking like a cubist version of a 1980 Polaroid instant camera. [Canon via Core77]

More factory shots at Moco Loco. [Moco Loco, Hulger via BBG]

It'd be a complete bitch for the TSA, but there really aren't enough functional wooden firearms in the world. [flickr via ubergizmo]